THE PROPER GENERIC NAME OF THE TUNNIES. 



BY 



Theodore Gill, M. D., Ph. I). 



It must be conceded that neither of the names generally used till 

 lately for the tunnies can be retained. What is the proper substitute 

 has been a question in dispute. 



President Jordan has proposed a new name {Albacora) for the true 

 tunny and another {Germo) for the long-ftnned albacore, but referring 

 both as subgenera to a common geuus for which he took the name 

 AJhaeora* 



The present writer has accepted the name Orycnus, originally the 

 result of a ^f|M'y/s <-ala)ui,\ but subsequently deliberately adopted for 

 the short-finned tunnies, t 



The reasons given for the revival of the name of Orycnus have not 

 satisfied President Jordan or his disciples, Dresslar and Fesler. The 

 latter have commented on the subject as follows: 



The iiaiue Orycnus Cooper, it seema to lis, is preoccupied by its previous use for 

 another genus or subgenus by Gill. It is therefore ineligible. In other words, a 

 generic name originating in a misprint of a well-knowr n.ame can not be later used 

 as a name of another genus. ^ 



Orycnus was not taken by Cooper for another genus or subgenus 

 than that for which it was originally used by Gill. That author, under 

 the caption ^^Genus Oryenns Cuv.," specified " Orycnus secundidorsalis,^'' 

 the tunny, and that only. For the tunnies only Cooper retained the 

 name, restricting Orcynus to the long-finned Albacores. It seems to 

 me that the course was legitimate. However, a discovery which I 

 made soon after the publication of my paper " On the proper generic 

 name of the tunny and albacore" will settle the question against all of 

 us in accordance with the principles of nomenclature recognized by us. 



In 1815 the twenty-fifth volume of the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana 

 was published, and in it are zoological articles by Dr. J. F. South. 



* Jordan (D. S.) A Manual of the Vertebrate Animals of the Northern United 

 States. Fifth edition. Chicago, 1888 (p. 106). 



t Proceedings of the U. S. National Museum, Vol. xi, p. 319, 1888. 



t Proceedings of the California Academy of Natural Sciences, Vol. in, p. 77, 1863. 



SS Bulletin of the U. S. Fish Commission, Vol. vii, for 1887 (p. 437). Washington. 



Piocecdiugs Natioual Mu.scuiii. A'oL XVI— No. 965. 



693 



